


Impossible Distances

by Torchiclove



Series: Cr Rarepair Week 2017 [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Howaardt is a shithead, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Standard de Rolo Suffering, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 10:05:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12010455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Torchiclove/pseuds/Torchiclove
Summary: Percival, cast from his home, seethes on the fourth floor of an apartment building in the Emon slums. He distracts himself by staring out the window and there he finds a boy who catches his eye. Try as he might, he cannot look away.Day 3 of rarepair week: M/M





	Impossible Distances

If the space (or lack thereof) in Percy’s new home wasn’t depressing, then the view certainly was.

The large window in his room (at least he had a room) looked out onto another grey apartment building, straight into someone else’s room, currently obscured by curtains. It was amazing how tightly packed these buildings were, when he was used to the sprawling rural expanse of Whitestone and the enormity of the castle. 

He could hear everything going on in the place; Vesper, gently talking to a tearful Cassandra; the downstairs neighbors doing something ungodly; the shouting match between an elderly couple the next floor up. It was infuriating, all the noise, the restlessness of this godforsaken place that he was trapped in.

Vesper’s voice and Cassandra’s tears stopped, and he knew they must be trying to sleep. It was useless not to try. The noise and the cramped space and the bleak outlook were things he’d just have to grow accustomed to.

It was two weeks later when Percy decided, definitively, that he’d leave as soon as he could and never come back. He was going stir crazy, trying to stay off the streets as much as possible, Vesper not letting him go out and look for work. She insisted he needed to focus on school (a whole other can of worms) and to let her take care of things. 

Vesper was run ragged trying to scrape together enough money to feed Percy, Cassandra, and herself. Julius wasn’t much better off, living at the closest apartment he could find (two blocks away, still too far for comfort), with the three other younger De Rolos under his care. And still no news about Johanna and Frederick, and still no news about the slimy bastards that took them away.

Percy stuck to what he was familiar with almost obsessively, spending all his free time building and tinkering. Taking apart magical objects to see what made them tick (he was never satisfied with the answer); trying to recreate well-known trinkets using only metal and engineering (with some degree of success). Magic was rampant in Emon, in a much different way than it was in Whitestone. Whitestone was a home for druids and clerics, harnessing the power of nature and the Gods, and arcane practitioners weren’t common there. They weren’t needed; it was a fancy art for fancy city-dwellers, not for the backwoods mountain city.

But Percy couldn’t walk down the street without seeing someone using magic in the most mundane ways. Bards played for coin while weaving illusions with their words, and sorcerers used their spells like an extra limb. He took pride, almost, in his mundane hands, without a spark of mysticism. It was like he was the magical one here, doing everything himself.

While he toiled and simmered with unspoken rage against his new life, Percy spared the time for the occasional glance out his window, because someone lived at the apartment he could see into. 

He learned more than he intended about that person, who he could just see through the gossamer curtains, occasionally parted or disturbed. They had long, golden hair, and kept their lights on late into the night. On most nights, that is; every once in awhile, the light would turn off early and there’d be no movement in the room until the next morning when everything returned to normal.

He became intrigued with this mysterious person whose life he only knew in glimpses, could only imagine. He wondered how long they’d lived there (longer than him, definitely, but how much?), why they stayed up so late, where they were on those nights where the lights were dim and the apartment was still. He wondered if they, like him, had mundane hands, scarred and calloused by their craft. 

He fantasized, on rare occasions, about speaking to them, about the day when they’d part their curtains and he’d wave through the window and they’d hit it off because they were just alike. Percy was not someone who longed for companionship often, but Vesper was always away working, and 12-year-old Cassandra wasn’t the best friend. He didn’t have friends growing up, but he had six siblings, and now the emptiness in their absence was noticeable.

 

Percy’s unspoken prayer was answered not a week after the initial thought began to worm its way into his mind-he was startled out of a late-night sleepless stupor by a loud crash against his window. Not enough to break it, it seemed, but jarring. He peered out and saw a worried face, stuck halfway out the window across from him.

It was the face of someone young, a teenager, probably close to his age. His golden hair was immaculately groomed, wavy and stopping just at his chin. He was looking half at the window he’d assaulted and half at the street below, searching for something.

Percy, intrigued, opened his window and poked his head out. “Hey-”

He was cut off immediately by the blonde boy. “Did you see where that went? Is it on that ledge right there?” He pointed to the ledge that extended two feet from the window and wrapped around the building about halfway up its height, just below Percy’s window. He looked down and saw something small and metallic sitting there, a few inches from the edge.

“Yes,” he said, now a little guarded. He talked like he was in charge in the situation. Almost condescending, it reminded him of every rich noble he’d ever spoken to, but here he was in the piss-poor slums of Emon. 

“Well, get it, then,” the blonde boy said, a little impatiently, giving Percy an expectant look.

Oh, Percy thought, fuck this guy. 

Percy narrowed his eyes and considered shutting the window and ending the conversation there, but curiosity got the better of him. “Why is it over here?”

“I was building something very complicated, and fiddling with the springs, and I let go at the wrong time, and really this will all go over your head,” he said, now clearly exasperated, tone dripping with condescension. 

“Really? I think I follow you perfectly,” Percy said dryly, and now he couldn’t let it go. He eyed the round metal object, just too far away to reach from inside the apartment, and stuck a foot out of the window.

Whatever the boy’s reply was died as he watched, perhaps not expecting Percy to comply with his request. Percy wormed his way out of the window and onto the ledge, ignoring the sense of vertigo as he stood so high above solid ground. He crouched to center himself, and quickly scooped up the metal object.

Looking closer, it seemed to be some kind of ball joint to a larger contraption, one with fairly versatile motion based on the nature of the joint. It looked skillfully made, almost impressive. 

“What exactly are you making that uses this?”

“Nothing you’d understand,” the boy reiterated, holding out an impatient hand and gesturing for Percy to give the object to him. Percy smirked and tossed it over, watching his eyes go wide as he leaned forward to catch it. It sailed comically over his arm and right past his ear, just disturbing his golden hair and landing with a dull thud on the floor of the apartment. 

“Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III,” Percy said, stretching out his hand in a mock gesture, and he was satisfied to see the boy truly caught off guard. 

“Taryon Darrington,” the boy replied, with the slightest quiver in his voice, and slowly began to shut the window as Percy crawled back into his room.

 

Taryon Darrington existed like an itch at the back of Percy’s mind, annoying and persistent. His immediate dislike was offset by his strange curiosity and near jealousy. He had to know more, know what this Taryon fellow was building, and know if he was better than him. 

Percy studied the window, occasionally left open to the cool autumn air, just on the precipice of pleasant and biting. He became accustomed to the short snapshot of Taryon’s life that he saw, glimpses of him hunched for hours on end over a work table just out of view, the sight of his immaculately kept room. Percy could see the foot of his bed through the window and nothing more, could just catch the edge of his bare feet as he was sleeping.

These were just casual observations, of course, something anyone would notice after a week or so of occasional glancing across to the other building. It wasn’t weird, it was observant, he reminded himself frequently.

Percy also tested the ledge outside his window; walked on it, sat with his legs dangling over the edge and watched the alley below. It was sturdy and, once he became accustomed to it, bigger than it seemed. He fought the natural fear that coiled in his chest when he looked down at the ground, gravity begging him to take one misstep. Heights had never been his strong suit, but he managed.

And every once in awhile, in the week or so that Percy spent observing and testing, he caught Taryon looking back. They made brief, awkward eye contact once or twice, and Percy could see out of the corner of his eye Taryon watching with interest as he walked along the ledge with his hand against the side of the building. There was something deeply satisfying about it, because Taryon looked ashamed when he was caught, and quickly hid himself away while Percy stared smugly from his position. 

The curiosity, eventually, grew too strong to be satisfied by snooping. Percy did what he had to; he crawled out of his window at sat at the ledge, just able to see the edge of Taryon’s (oddly expensive-looking) shirt as he hunched over his workbench, just like always. He picked up the small handful of pebbles that he’d left sitting by the window, and he tossed one at the window opposite him. 

It hit harmlessly, but produced a loud, satisfying thud as it struck the thick pane. Taryon jumped slightly and got up to find the source of the noise, surprised to see Percy, smirking with his legs dangling off the ledge by his window. Taryon threw his window open and stuck his head out wordlessly.

“Taryon, I’d like to talk about what you’re building,” Percy said, smugly. 

Taryon, still confused and a more than a little concerned, swallowed dryly as he looked over Percival. “It’s an automaton.”

“Of what kind?” 

“A metal man, you know, like the ones in stories,” Taryon said apprehensively.

“Not as powerful as a golem, I’d imagine,” Percy said, tossing a pebble back and forth between his hands, “Or as big?”

“No, nothing like that, though he is fairly tall, almost eight feet.” Taryon relaxed slightly, leaning on the sill and giving Percy his full attention. 

“Where are you keeping it, if it’s that big?” Percy asked, genuinely confused for the first time. He thought he knew everything, had the upper hand, and now had to rethink what he was dealing with.

Taryon answered by turning around and picking up a medium-sized, plain bag, reaching in, and pulling out what appeared to be a head-like structure made of iron. It was too large to have reasonably fit in the bag without being noticeable, and Percy recognized the magic at once.

“Where’d you get a bag of holding in a place like this?” Percy asked, shocked at seeing such an expensive item in the hands of someone destitute enough to live in the slums of Emon. The De Rolos had a few themselves, but they were lost when the children fled the castle.

Taryon looked him up and down for a second, eyes hovering on his slightly-ragged blue coat, the only symbol left of Percival’s previous wealth. “My family has a great deal of money back home,” he said, voice guarded, as he slipped the head of the automaton back into the bag. 

“As does mine,” Percy said, raising a curious eyebrow. Now that his attention was called to it, he could hear the faint accent behind Taryon’s voice. It sounded eerily, almost viscerally, familiar, but he couldn’t place where he’d heard it before. He decided to drop it, sensing the growing tension. “How long until it’s finished, then, Taryon?”

“Please, my friends call me Tary,” he said, almost instinctively, like a reflex of hearing his name used in casual conversation. 

“How long, Tary?”

“Still a few weeks off. I have all the parts, I just need to wait for the enchantment to take before I can assemble it,” he said, now leaning halfway out of the window and engrossed in the conversation. 

“The enchantment? So you’re using magic?” Percy asked, trying not to sound disappointed. He’d built Tary up as some engineer to rival him, and the relief almost wasn’t worth the let down. 

“Yes, of course,” Tary said, the confused expression cropping up again, “I thought you were familiar with these type of things?”

“All too well. I just thought you might’ve figured a way to do it without magic,” Percy explained, with that familiar hint of smugness masking the dejectedness. He found himself suddenly, loathsomely bored.

“I don’t see why I’d need to,” Tary said adamantly, and the conviction behind it piqued Percy’s interest again. 

“Reliability,” he said simply, evasively.

“My magic is perfectly reliable.”

“How do you know that? What if it stops working some day? Where does it come from, what powers it?” Percy didn’t mean to launch into his familiar spiel, but he found himself compelled.

“If magic stops working some day then I’ll have bigger problems to worry about than my automaton. Meanwhile, I’d be a fool not to use it while it’s here.” He said it like it was so obvious, just a fact of the universe, and Percy was uneasy with his confidence. “What sort of things do you make?”

“Nothing enchanted, I’m no caster. Mostly metalwork,” Percy said defensively, and he realized then that he really had nothing to show for his labors. Nearly everything impressive he’d ever made was rotting in Whitestone, while all he had in the apartment was small pieces, cobbled together to pass the time using scavenged scraps. It was mostly fooling around with naturally-generated electricity, seeing what he could do with it.

All he had left was from his workshop was Diplomacy, mostly-completed and barely functional. It was a cruel device, but fascinating, and he never saw a practical use for it other than studying it after the initial inspiration hit. 

“Maybe we’ll see what we can make together,” Tary said as Percy was caught up in his thoughts, and the next thing he heard was the window opposite him shutting as Tary returned to his work.

He wasn’t satisfied with the answers he’d gotten, and he didn’t know why. Tary was not the superior engineer, he’d established, but that wasn’t a comfort. His curiosity had not been sated, and Tary’s last comment stuck with him.

Make together. What could Percy make with his non-magical fingers that Tary couldn’t do with his enchantments? It irked him, the arrogance of the statement, but he also felt inspired to impress, to show his intellect.

So Percy set to work, building something for him and Tary with what scavenged supplies he had.

Two days later he begrudgingly declared his simple device perfected, and he climbed onto his ledge and threw a few pebbles. Tary came to the window quickly, opened it up and stuck his head out, but seemed reserved about climbing all the way onto the ledge. 

“If we’re really doing this, I’m going to get tired of throwing things across this gap,” Percy started, and he grabbed a coil of ropey cord. “So catch this one and we’ll be done.” He tossed the end of the rope, weighted with a small chunk of rock, at Tary, who caught it with a look of surprise.

“Now tie it off like this.” He picked up his end of the cord and looped it around a metal fixture at the top of the window, and he watched Tary do the same seconds later. He was satisfied to see he’d measured the distance right and the cord was taut. 

Percy got to work attaching the second part, which was a cloth sack attached to a metal ring that could open and close around the cord. He affixed it, and dropped a long coil of twine in the sack. He took another identical coil, and tied it to the metal ring. “Now pull it down.”

Tary reached up and grabbed the cord, having caught on to what Percival was setting up. The sack slid towards his end and he took the twine out and tied it to the other side of the ring, leaving plenty of slack as he attached the other end to a different part of the window.

Percy pulled on his twine and the bag moved back to him, and he smirked at the simple functionality of it.

“A real feat of engineering, Percival,” Tary said sarcastically as they tested the simple contraption to make sure it would withstand continued use.

“I don’t exactly have much to work with here,” Percy countered, gesturing to the small apartment and the series of subpar buildings around it. “And anyway, it works.”

“You’re still going to throw rocks at my window to get my attention, though.”

“Maybe we’ll fix that next.”

 

They did. They spent a few days having conversations out the window about what might be the best way to set up an alert system (just get a cell phone, they both suggested, and laughed at themselves because that wasn’t an option). They’d both had one, before their respective fleeing of their homes, which came up uncomfortably.

“You mentioned you had money back home,” Percy said one day while they lamented about the tragic lack of supplies and funds in the Emon slums, and he saw Tary immediately clam up. “So you come from money?” 

“I do,” Tary said, showing clear discomfort, “And with a name like that it’s hard to believe you wouldn’t.”

“The family’s having some difficulties at the moment,” Percy said, choosing his words carefully. Nobody knew about the situation outside him and his siblings, and he wasn’t quite ready for that to change. “It’s a temporary thing. Legal business.”

“Something similar with mine. Where are you from?”

He was wary about revealing too much of himself to Tary, this boy he barely knew, but he didn’t think a name was too much. He’d probably never heard of it, would never think of the place again. “Whitestone. And you?”

“Somewhere in Wildmount, you wouldn’t know it,” Tary said dismissively, and they could both feel the tension even with the feet of open air between them.

Wildmount rung a bell; Percy felt like it was relevant somehow, like it had been mentioned recently but he wasn’t quite sure when or why. “Good luck on going home, Tary.”

“Luck to you, too, Percival.” They both shut their windows and slept uneasily that night, plagued by the unexpected memories of home.

The ice between them slowly melted on those days, leaning out windows and standing on ledges, talking mostly about building but in brief snippets about life, about themselves. Percy wouldn’t admit that he’d never had a real friend before, but he was quick to realize that Tary hadn’t either. And Percival, at least, had his many siblings, while Tary only ever mentioned one sister, who he spoke of with distaste.

As they snowballed ideas on an alert system, in became quickly apparent that with the available supplies there was no way in hell to pull it off without magic. Percy nixed the idea quickly- “It’s just not reliable, we can find something else.” -but after days of no luck scavenging for parts, Tary wore him down.

“Just this one thing, and we’ll rebuild it without the enchantment later,” Percy said sternly, as he sat with his feet dangling over the ledge. He’d gotten even more comfortable with it now, and Tary had finally decided to join him, just outside his respective window, though far away from the drop. 

“Honestly, Percival, I don’t understand what you have against magic, it’s so useful,” Tary said, dragging up the argument that they rehashed every day.

“I don’t know where it comes from, there’s no telling if it lasts forever, and it could stop working for no reason,” Percy asserted, exasperated, and he watched Tary roll his eyes.

“If you say so.” Tary waved goodbye and crawled back into his window.

The addition of magic sped up the drafting considerably, but put a brake on the building time. Enchantments took time to take hold, especially for someone so young and inexperienced. The metal housing was built quickly, but a week and a half of the project was spent carving arcane runes and channeling power into it.

The device was fairly simple. They built two small, metal bases, about the size of a palm, and attached a glass dome to the top of each. The housings were mundane; inside both was a bead of glass, enchanted to glow a different color depending on the trigger used. Each bead was attuned to a button on the other device, and the number of times it was pressed would cycle through the lights.

Percy grinned as he pressed the button on his alarm and watched Tary’s glow bright green, then yellow, then red, then off. Tary did the same for Percival’s device, and they declared the project a success.

“So how urgent is urgent?” Tary asked the following day, as they hammered out the specifics of what the different lights meant. Green for a standard, ‘come here, I want to talk’, yellow for, ‘come here, this is urgent’, and red for emergencies only. 

“Something that you need to say within 15 minutes of when it happens,” Percy decided after a moment of deliberation. “Or, if it’s something that you really don’t want to be ignored.”

“Right, and what constitutes an emergency?” Tary asked.

“Imminent physical harm? Or if something explodes. Either is fine.”

 

A deep satisfaction ran through Percy’s chest every time he glanced over to see the light glowing green by his windowsill and he saw Tary waiting for him across the way. It was surprising how much Tary was the one to signal him, given that it’d only been the other way around before. Maybe he was just so excited to use their new contraption. 

They talked more after that, less about building and more about life. Percy complained about school; Tary wasn’t going (private tutors in Wildmount, he’d catch up when he went back). Tary listened with fascination as Percy rambled on about his siblings, complaining about nosey Cassandra or condescending Vesper. 

Tary mentioned Maryanne every once in awhile, if only to spit on her name. Percy understood a dislike for siblings, but the conviction behind him put him on edge. The De Rolos were not close, but they weren’t this; they didn’t hate each other. 

Tary, from what Percy could tell, had an interesting relationship with his family. He hated his sister, loved his mother, and respected his father to an almost unnerving degree. He’d only ever talk about what a great businessman he was, how he always did what was best for the family. Maryanne and Mariya were given personality through his descriptions, but his father remained a mysterious veil of vague compliments.

Percy never pressed him on it because Tary never pressed him to talk about Johanna and Frederick. They developed a mutual understanding about how far they could pry into each other’s past, and they both knew the other was holding back. It didn’t bother Percy at all, and he couldn’t imagine Tary cared either. 

Those few weeks were the happiest time Percy had in Emon so far, and he figured he spent more time sitting on the ledge outside his room than in it. They used their new invention liberally, as both an excuse to talk and be proud of their work. The yellow light was used only a few times, and only by Tary, who never had a solid explanation for the ‘urgency’. 

Then, after those few good weeks, things started to change. It was slow, at first; Tary came the window visibly frazzled, some days, and chalked it up to lack of sleep (he’d been working so hard on his automaton, on which the completion date kept being set back). He developed a nervousness to him that Percy hadn’t noticed before, always glancing over his shoulder and speaking in short, clipped sentences. 

Sometimes, Tary didn’t answer Percy’s signal at all, something that had never happened before. It wounded his pride, though he tried to be understanding. It only made sense that Tary’s life didn’t revolve around Percival, that he wouldn’t always have the time for conversation. 

It felt like something was looming in the apartment across the alley, some imperceptible change, a tension to the air that hung like a thick fog. It consumed Tary, day by day, making him more fidgety and less reliable. Percy felt it weighing on his heart as well.

Tary had a predictable cycle of clothes, all far too nice for someone living where he did, and Percy had picked up quickly that it was the remainder of his wardrobe as a rich kid in Wildmount. They were beginning to go threadbare, being worn far more than they were ever intended to be, and as these days of oppressive tension passed, Percy noticed quicker changes.

Items went missing. Some began to show signs of heavier wear, holes or tears that weren’t there before, and didn’t appear in the expected places. Percy held his tongue on this change, and simply watched. He became more observant again, tried to find a reason for it, but he couldn’t.

It hurt him in a way he didn’t quite understand, to see confident and loud Taryon Darrington grow meek and nervous before his eyes. Percy really began to notice how small he looked, huddled on the ledge, still uneasy about getting near the edge, and he felt a coldness in his chest, an anger in his heart. Percival was good at fixing things; he wanted to fix this. He needed a cause to the problem, something to root out so he could go back to the way his heart happily swelled when he saw the green light in his room, rather than the dread he felt when he pressed the button and nothing came from the window opposite him.

Percy contemplated this on one of his many sleepless nights, and he caught the flicker of light across his room. It was late, past midnight, much later than they usually called each other to come out. He only had time to think this before the light quickly switched the yellow, and he felt the dread rise in his stomach. A moment’s hesitation, and it proceeded to red. 

Percy swallowed dryly, and sprang out of his bed. He could already see Tary at his own window, shoving the alert system into his bag of holding. As soon as it went in the light winked out, the signal being, on technicality, in another plane of existence. Tary threw his window open as Percy rushed to the other side of his room.

At this angle, Percy could see the door to Tary’s room. He could hear the loud thuds of something banging against it, could almost make out shouted words from the other side. It visibly moved with each hit, locked but barely holding up. The expression of abject fear on Tary’s face as he climbed through the window was enough to make Percy’s blood boil and, at the same time, to run cold with fear. 

It clicked in a sudden, violent moment of thought, the tattered clothing and nervous disposition, the fear, and the unwillingness Tary had to talk about his father. His father, the only person in the apartment who could have that deep, terrifying voice.

Tary, once outside, spared a fleeting glance into his room as he slammed the window shut behind him. Percy had opened his window by now, and looked on with dread as the pieces of what was about the happen fell into place. 

He held his arms out, leaned his body forwards just out the window. It was all he could think to do.

It was not a wide gap. Maybe a few feet, at most, but it felt like a mile had been separating them this whole time. It was an impossibly far distance, and before Percy could say anything, offer any warning, Tary was halfway across it. Time slowed down, and Tary was floating through the air for what felt like minutes. 

Reality snapped back with the sound of feet hitting stone, hard, and Percy used his outstretched arms to grab the first thing in reach. His hand connected with Tary’s arm, and he pulled back as fast as he could.

Tary barely had time to regain his balance before he was half climbing, half being dragged into Percy’s room. Both of them sat there for a second, breathing heavily on the floor, for the first time in over a month of knowing each other in touching distance. 

Tary looked Percy in the eyes, clenched his teeth, and choked out a horrid, ugly sob.

Percy wrapped his arms around Tary, pulling him in close and keeping him there in a tight embrace, as Tary sobbed a few more times before weeping quietly into Percy’s shoulder. 

Percy pressed his lips to the soft, golden hair, mussed for the first time he’d ever seen it, over and over again. He didn’t let go until he felt Tary’s heaving chest still and take deep, even breaths. 

He put his hands on Tary’s shoulders and looked at his face, red and puffy from crying, still with a look of confusion mixed with fear. Percy helped him to his feet and to his bed, where Tary graciously lay down, now showing his exhaustion. 

Percy hesitated, looking for a comfortable spot on the floor, and Tary reached out a hand for Percival to join him. 

There was a tangle of thought as Percival hesitated, sorting through weeks of feelings, ignored or unrealized, that had all clicked into place when he saw that light flash red. He climbed into bed with his first and only friend, still so fragile there, and gazed at him with disbelief. He was inches away, impossibly close.

“I didn’t think he’d actually-” Tary started hoarsely, almost apologetically. He was cut off as Percy shushed him quietly. 

“We’ll talk about everything in the morning. Sleep.” Percy placed a hesitant kiss on Tary’s forehead and offered an arm. Tary moved in closer and Percy wrapped himself around him, one hand on the back of Tary’s head as he buried it in Percy’s chest. 

He closed his eyes, and together they slept.

**Author's Note:**

> This is about the fic when the time crunch really hit, so the editing was a little sparse, and I think it feels a little rushed but it sure is finished. Ended up longer than I intended but shorter than it deserved.


End file.
